John 10:12, commentary and pictures

The hireling is not the shepherd and the sheep are not his own, so he does not truly care for them but works only for wages and his own ease and profit, and when the wolf comes with danger and trial he leaves the flock and flees to save himself. Left unguarded and unwarned, the sheep are then seized and torn and scattered, wounded and exposed. In contrast Christ is the true and faithful Shepherd whose own the sheep are by creation and by purchase with his sufferings and blood, who stays to defend them and lays down his life for them. The wolf is Satan advancing with stealth to seize poor souls asleep in error, in deadly conflict with Christ over the flock. Therefore those entrusted with the flock as under-shepherds — ministers, and parents and teachers of the lambs — are required not to be hirelings but to share Christ's interest, feed and strengthen the weak, warn of danger, seek the lost at personal cost, and stay faithfully at the work.

Shepherd Picture and Language

The verse belongs to a shepherd picture that shows Christ's relation to believers, with Christ as the Shepherd and believers as a helpless, dependent flock who need a safe fold. The children are His precious little flock, whom He loves and wants to bless, and they must be carefully and tenderly shielded from temptation and guided to safety. Parents who love Christ should therefore care tenderly for their children as His representatives in the home, helping them become lambs in His fold.

Christ used the familiar daily life of sheep and shepherds to illustrate immortal truth, using facts of daily life and experience familiar to the hearers to teach spiritual truth. Like His other illustrations it gives something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart, so the daily task is brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and the unseen. The lesson of the shepherd guiding lost sheep back to the fold shapes character, helps people know God, increases their ability to do good, and concerns both daily life and eternity. Such everyday images carried deep meaning and helped listeners remember His lessons, turning ordinary work into a reminder of the unseen.

A shepherd watched his flock by night and guarded it from wild beasts and robbers, showing the care and protection the sheep could expect from the true shepherd in contrast to the hireling who abandons the sheep when danger comes. The True Shepherd leads His sheep without whip or force, by voice alone, and the sheep know where He desires them to go and press close together to follow Him at His call when one strays. After Jesus was no longer with them the disciples felt like sheep without a shepherd, for Jesus had been the one who sought and saved souls ready to perish. The hireling is one who does not truly belong to the sheep or take responsibility for them, so when danger comes he abandons them and the wolf catches and scatters them, while the same shepherd-and-sheep imagery presents a person as a sheep near the fold whom Christ welcomes back.

Hireling's Neglect and Flight

The hireling is not the shepherd and the sheep are not his own, so he does not truly belong to them, takes no true responsibility for them, and does not truly care for them. This stands opposite Christ as the good and true Shepherd who continually cares for His people, knows His sheep and is known by them, gives His life for them that they might have life more abundantly, lays it down freely and takes it again, brings other sheep to one fold, and after the fall left His Father's house to save sheep seen in pitiable, miserable, wandering, perishing condition exposed to sure destruction, calling them to a safe fold as retreat from robbers, shelter from heat and protection from cold, strengthening the weak, nourishing the suffering and fainting, going before them so they follow His voice and not a stranger, and gathering lambs in His arms and bosom. The hireling pictures claimed ministers and shepherds such as the Jewish priests and rulers who neglected the needy, helpless, broken and sick without the fear and love of God and without true commission, and shepherds entrusted with the flock must instead protect and care for it even in danger rather than show selfish concern for personal safety.
Because he cares not for the sheep but cares only for himself, the hireling labors merely for the wages he obtains, studies his own interests and ease, works for gain and puts his own profit first. Applied to ministers, a shepherd who works merely for wages and seeks his own ease or interest is like this hireling, lacking a faithful shepherd's concern and lacking particular interest in the welfare of the flock. Christ as chief Shepherd has entrusted His flock to ministers as under-shepherds to oversee and tend it, requiring them not to be hirelings but to share His interest, follow His self-denying and self-sacrificing example in laying down His life to secure deliverance, feed with diligence, strengthen the weak, nourish the fainting, shield from devouring beasts and wolves, revive the fainting, and labor constantly with deeper interest than Jacob showed over Laban's cattle so the flock will prosper. The faithful shepherd puts the sheep's welfare ahead of his own ease, works to save the lost and wandering even at personal cost, carries the burden for souls, endures privations and hardships, remains committed regardless of wages expecting reward when work is complete, and stays faithfully at hard labor especially when interest is raised and minds are agitated, while the hireling has no burden, wishes to be carried, lets trifles such as bad roads, rainy weather, little matters at home, desire for a pleasanter and easier field, or preference for easier work divert him, and lets the interest die, so that unfaithfulness, carelessness and leaving the work causes souls to be lost and decides destinies, whereas self-sacrificing faithfulness saves many.
When he sees the wolf coming and danger or trial comes, the hireling abandons the sheep, leaves them and flees to save himself, unlike a faithful shepherd who guards and stays with them. Such hired keepers who do not own or truly care for the sheep expose false shepherds unlike Christ, as with the Pharisees though professed leaders, while Jesus as the good Shepherd who gives His life stays with His followers to defend them from danger, seeks the lost and straying to bring them to safety and sustenance, and came from heaven to seek and save the lost as the model for earnest labor for the unsaved. Those entrusted with Christ's people must not leave straying souls to perish but must seek them and work to save them, and ministers who let hardship, inconvenience, or preference for easier work turn them away from people in need act like hirelings rather than faithful shepherds. Preaching alone is not faithful shepherding, for unlike the hireling who abandons the sheep when danger comes, the faithful minister watches with deep interest and does personal work by talking and praying with those taught, guarding the people entrusted to his care and seeking the lost.
The wolf then catches, seizes and tears them and scatters the sheep, leaving them vulnerable, wounded and exposed because the unfaithful shepherd failed to guard, warn and protect them. A professed shepherd who watches the flock be harmed by deception without warning or defending them lets the devourer attack and allows scattering, bearing fearful responsibility, and a watchman and shepherd must recognize danger, warn and protect, for failing makes him accountable and blaming the sheep does not excuse neglect. Shepherds who betray their charge tear apart the flock and leave members wounded and vulnerable, and a careless, irresponsible shepherd who abandons the sheep when threatened allows them to be lost and scattered, so that in church labor such a shepherd can lose more than he gathers and leave a church weak and unable to bear responsibilities. Young workers therefore need shepherd-like care and protection from worldly influence to remain spiritually alive, as in the restaurants where danger threatens.

Christ the True Shepherd

In contrast to the hireling, Christ is the true, faithful and Chief Shepherd to whom the whole human family is entrusted as a flock to a shepherd. The sheep are His own property by creation and by giving His life for them, purchased at the cost of His own sufferings in the flesh and His own precious blood, and He does not surrender those He has redeemed to any person. He has infinite tenderness for them and looks upon them with unutterable affection, willing that they not perish with the devil and his angels but be claimed as His chosen ones. He gives to His loved ones who believe in Him the fragrance of His own righteousness.

After the fall He saw His sheep in a pitiable condition, miserable and wandering, exposed to sure destruction and ready to perish. He left the honors and glory of His Father's house to become a shepherd to save them. He is the door by whom anyone entering is saved and finds pasture so they may have life more abundantly. He knows His sheep and is known by them as the Father knows Him, lays down His life freely and takes it again by the Father's commandment, and must bring other sheep not of this fold to hear His voice so there will be one fold and one shepherd.

He continually cares for them as a safe retreat from robbers, a shelter from scorching heat and a protection from chilling blasts. He strengthens the weak, nourishes the suffering and fainting, gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them in His bosom, goes before them so they hear His voice and follow Him and will not follow a stranger, and leads them to green pastures and living streams of water to quench thirst and refresh spirits. His sheep are secure in His love with the utmost kindness and tender watchfulness, and no amount of tribulation can separate them from Him so they can trust Him. His workers must recognize and understand the voice of Jesus as the true Shepherd.

He stays with His followers to defend them from danger and wolves, seeks the lost and straying to bring them back to the fold and to safety and sustenance, and carries them back. He came from heaven to seek and save the lost, giving His followers a model for earnest, unwearied labor for the unsaved, and His laborers cooperate with God by laying hold of the power of divinity through living faith and working without loss of time, while the day lasts, to recover the guilty wandering ones and lead them back to the Shepherd and to the path of life. His voice guides and shields those who have not resisted truth amid false doctrines, giving them opportunity to know God and the Saviour and receive Christ within as the hope of glory.

He loves and values every sheep and lamb, loves the youngest members of the family and the lambs of His fold who come to Him for blessing, does not repulse them, keeps His eyes upon them, guides them, and wants them to have beautiful characters. He hears their prayers and accepts the simple prayers of children by mingling them with the incense of His own spotless merits, so they come up before God as a sweet-smelling savor made fragrant by the purity and loveliness of His character. He is kind, merciful and tender and worthy of constant trust, especially by those suffering for the truth, and all depend on His atonement. He did not fail or become discouraged but spent whole nights in prayer to gain strength against temptation and prayed for people who did not pray for themselves, in devoted care for His little flock.

True religion, the religion of the Bible, consists in being under His guidance, following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and being like Jesus in thoughts, in words and in deeds. His followers model their ways after the divine Pattern, present the fruits of righteousness in their example, and take the standard, rule and aim Jesus has provided as the Way, the Truth, the Life as the pleasant path to attain. No under-shepherd can sacrifice his life for the sheep as the great Shepherd did. He is dishonored when His sheep crowd and push one another in dissension created out of inferior things.

Wolf and Satan's Attack

The wolf is Satan himself advancing with stealthy tread and intense energy to seize his prey, and his prey are poor souls asleep in error. He works from beneath with the powers of darkness pressing with intense energy to catch those now asleep. The wolf stands for a real threat to the flock, whose catching and scattering follows the hireling's flight.

Because the day of the Lord and the end are near, those who have received truth above others are debtors to impart it, to sound the alarm throughout the length and breadth of the earth to those in error, and to leave none unwarned. There is no time to lose, and the warning work that can be done now will soon be more difficult. The work must be done now, faced honestly and advanced as fast as possible in aggressive warfare, before passage from place to place is hedged with dangers on the right hand and on the left and everything is placed to obstruct the messengers. Safety is to keep in the channel of light with eyes fastened on Christ and Jesus as Leader, and patiently and perseveringly to press on till victory is gained and not be taken by the wolf.

Jesus Christ as the True Shepherd is in deadly conflict with Satan over His sheep. Satan hates every human being made in the image of God, and his bitterest enmity is against God and His only begotten Son and with deadly hatred against all who bear Christ's name, seeking by deceiving and hurting them to grieve Jesus and to make them weak and incapable of service under their Captain. To willing slaves bound to his chariot he shows no special enmity and lets them rest in a measure of peace, but when the message of mercy reaches his bondslaves and they seek to wrench themselves from his power to follow the True Shepherd, he binds them with additional chains to hold them in his possession. The conflict really begins when the captive tugs at his chain longing to be free, yet when the human agent cooperates with heavenly intelligences and faith takes hold upon Christ, Christ who is stronger than the strong man armed becomes the helper of the soul, and man is strengthened by the Holy Spirit to obtain freedom.

Those who bite and devour and ruin and destroy manifest the spirit of the wolf and will meet a most fearful account in the judgment. False leaders among God's people will persuade the flock to turn from God, and those not firmly grounded in truth can be led astray. Calling a religious leader a wolf rather than a pastor applies the shepherd-hireling contrast to leaders who act as tyrants instead of caring for the church.

No fold can be assumed to be entirely free from wolves, so the presence of danger does not by itself show that people must leave the church. Where a person could find a fold into which no wolves will enter is the searching question the image puts. The claim that leaving God's commandment-keeping people will lead to a completely safe, pure community is thereby challenged.

False Shepherds Exposed

John 10:12 contrasts Christ the true Shepherd with leaders who fail the flock, and the Pharisees showed themselves unworthy shepherds when they drove away a man whom Christ was drawing to himself. Rather than caring for the sheep they scattered them, acting like hirelings who abandon the flock when danger comes while the wolf seizes and scatters it. This was seen when they tried to make the healed blind man deny Jesus' miracle and cast him out because he testified to what Jesus had done. Their religious learning and claim to follow Moses did not make them faithful shepherds, but exposed them as leaders unlike Christ who gives his life for the sheep.

The hireling is not the shepherd and the sheep are not his own, so when he sees the wolf coming he leaves the sheep and flees because he does not care for them, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This pictures the Jewish priests and rulers who claimed to be ministers and shepherds of the people but neglected the needy, helpless, broken and sick, without the fear and love of God and without true commission. The scribes and Pharisees, though seated in Moses' place, failed in their duty to guide and feed the flock, acting like thieves and robbers rather than faithful shepherds. This warns that the church must examine the guidance its people receive.

Religious leaders who oppose the work of God's Spirit with bitter hatred against the message and its messengers are false shepherds who abandon and harm those in their care. Their conduct undermines confidence in their religious claims, and people will not remain deceived by them forever. The same warning applies to people who deceive others and leave them vulnerable to Satan's power, since a false shepherd does not protect the sheep when danger comes. Those who hide their convictions about duty because they fear persecution act like this hireling who abandons the sheep when danger comes, rather than following Jesus the true Shepherd by maintaining principle despite suffering.

Those who use God's entrusted gifts, tact and talent to advance worldly interests and reach their own ends are hirelings, not good shepherds. They feed themselves instead of giving food to those perishing around them, bring selfishness into the work, and draw sympathy to themselves. They secure funds to use as their own judgment dictates, binding about God's advancing work by placing restrictions on fellow workers to force compliance with their terms. God will take his work from such unfaithful hirelings and give it to those who will do it faithfully, bringing forth fruit to his glory.

Those without a living connection with God and without power from on high do not have the Spirit of the True Shepherd and are unreliable hirelings who do only a human work from human judgment and fail to do the supernatural work. They do not strengthen the things that remain and are ready to die and do not seek to save that which is ready to perish. In times when souls are in great peril they do not know how to speak a word in season to draw them into safe paths, because they do not watch for souls as those who must give an account.

Faithful Shepherds Charged

Christ as chief Shepherd has entrusted His flock to ministers as under-shepherds under Himself to oversee and tend it, and He requires them not to be hirelings but to share His own interest for the sheep. They are to follow His self-denying example in laying down His life to secure their deliverance, feed the flock with diligence, strengthen the weak, nourish and revive the fainting, and shield them from devouring beasts and wolves. They are to labor constantly for their welfare with deeper interest than Jacob showed over the cattle of Laban, so that the flock will prosper under their care. The hireling has no particular interest in the sheep because they are not his own, labors merely for wages and gain, cares only for himself, studies his own ease and profit, and in time of danger or trial flees and leaves the flock exposed.

The faithful shepherd puts the sheep's welfare ahead of his own ease, works to save the lost and wandering even at personal cost, and remains committed to duty regardless of wages, expecting his reward when his work is complete. He carries the burden of the work for souls, endures privations and hardships, and stays faithfully at hard labor, especially when an interest is raised and minds are agitated. The hireling has no burden upon him, wishes to be carried by the people, and lets trifles such as bad roads, rainy weather, little matters at home, or desire for a more pleasant and easy field divert him and lets the interest die out. Such unfaithfulness, carelessness, and leaving the work causes souls to be lost and decides the destiny of souls, while self-sacrificing faithfulness in the work given by the Master is instrumental in the salvation of many.

Preaching alone is not faithful shepherding, for the faithful minister guards those entrusted to him with deep interest and does personal work by talking and praying with those taught. He searches out the lost and straying to bring them back to the fold, visits every family not as a guest to enjoy hospitality but to inquire into the spiritual condition of every member, visits the sick and absent, and seeks those drifting away or who have stopped attending lest they be lost from Christ's fold. He labors with his soul imbued with the love of God, by kindly courtesy wins his way to hearts, works for parents and children by entreating, warning and encouraging as each case demands, and keeps the church alive and laboring with him for the conversion of sinners. This is good generalship and brings far better results than doing all the work alone, and such efforts bear fruit to God's glory.

A watchman and shepherd must recognize danger, warn the flock, and protect it, and must not watch them be harmed by deception without warning or defending them. Failing to guard the flock when danger comes is unfaithful hireling work that leaves the sheep exposed to be torn and scattered by the devourer, makes him accountable for the harm, and blaming the sheep does not excuse his neglect. Those entrusted with Christ's people must not abandon straying souls in danger to perish but must seek them and work to save them. Church members who let the erring wander, show little care for them, or say let them go fail to show the Great Shepherd's compassion, tenderness and undying care, while the Lord is calling the erring, the weak and trembling, and even those apostatized from the truth to come fully into the fold, with a special duty on members to go and search for these lost sheep rather than feel no burden for them. A careless, irresponsible shepherd can lose more members than he gathers and leave a church weak and unable to bear its responsibilities, and young workers need shepherd-like protection from worldly influence to remain spiritually alive, while a minister who corrupts youth acts contrary to shepherd duty.

Parents and teachers are shepherds of the lambs of the flock, for children are God's property entrusted to them for faithful ministry in the home and the school. As Christ's representatives they should care tenderly for children to help them become lambs in His fold, leading them with tact and wisdom and human love and sanctified affection and the gentleness of Jesus Christ to see their privilege in yielding to tender guidance. Leaving self-indulgence and disobedience uncorrected, or correcting with an overbearing, masterful, inconsiderate spirit that makes children's lives miserable and destroys respect for father, mother, brothers and sisters, is the work of the hireling who does not truly care for the sheep. Such failure leaves the lambs unguarded and prepares their souls for Satan as the wolf to catch them and work his will upon them, so suitable shepherds must be fitted up to protect and train them in a work of which they will not be ashamed. A hireling will not bear the hard responsibility of rescuing neglected children where Satan has sown tares in their hearts, for uprooting that evil growth and sowing the good seed requires determined persevering effort and longsuffering patience with tender Christlike love instead of harshness, censure and chiding, and only when this home duty is faithfully borne is a man prepared to feed the flock of God and manifest the Saviour's tender care.

Ministers of the Word are Christ's ambassadors and are to be respected and treated as such, and medical missionary work must never be exalted as a body in a way that makes the gospel ministry of no account, for no under-shepherd can sacrifice his life for the sheep as Christ the great Shepherd did. Christ came to a world marked by suffering and need, and those entrusted with His work are to follow His example of earnest labor for the unsaved by reaching people where they are, caring for the sheep and lambs, cooperating with God through living faith while the day lasts to recover the guilty wandering ones and lead them back to the Shepherd and the path of life. The book of nature used alongside Scripture can help guide lost sheep back to God's fold. A mere outward connection with the church as God's flock does not save, and only personal faith in a personal Saviour brings the soul into spiritual union with Christ.